Scientific Method —

An editorial war on science

The New York Times provides some of the best coverage of science in any …

Let me start by saying that The New York Times provides some of the best science coverage anywhere. They're one of the last papers with a dedicated science section, and will also put breaking science news in the front section. They employ some of the best writers around, including my favorite (Carl Zimmer). They also refuse to succumb to the false need to present all social arguments over scientific issues as equally valid; every article on evolution controversies contains a statement noting that evolution is nearly universally accepted by biologists, and that there are no competing theories.

I've gradually realized, however, that the editorial pages of The Times aren't held to the same standards; in fact, many editorials appear to be actively undermining them. In the interest of presenting varied points of view, the op/ed page has done everything from presenting gross mischaracterizations of science to claims that subvert the peer review process.

One of the more obvious examples was when The Times published an opinion piece from Michael Behe, a prominent supporter of the intelligent design movement. In it, Behe argued that if something looked designed from his subjective perspective, it was scientific to conclude that it was designed. He also suggested that his personal opinion should be expanded so that it became the default explanation for all of biology—design should be assumed in the absence of contrary data.

It was an egregious distortion of the scientific process, printed just after the lawsuit in Dover over intelligent design kicked off, but it was published without comment or context. And it was hardly the last instance of weird things being printed about evolution; The Times also published an essay from then presidential candidate Sam Brownback suggesting that any scientific finding that contradicted his personal theological perspective should be rejected as flawed.

But The Times didn't stop at undermining current scientific understanding—it had issues with the process as well. In the lead up to this year's presidential primaries, it published an ostensibly scientific exploration of voters' responses to the major candidates as revealed by functional MRI. The problem is that the story ran without enough information to evaluate whether the experiments actually did any such thing; the methodology and conclusions had never seen peer review.

Equally problematic is the fact that the "study" was performed in part by a company that sells their fMRI service to companies looking to evaluate responses to products and advertising. In short, the authors had a vested interest in portraying their work as more accurate and detailed than it actually is. This prompted a number of leading fMRI practitioners to register these complaints in a letter that is well worth reading. Ironically, one of The Times' own writers later went on to warn against assigning this approach any special credibility. Any reader who missed these responses, however, would come away with a seriously distorted view of the state of the science.

Not content with undermining the nature and practice of science, the editorial page has gone on to question the very rationale for science itself. In a truly odd piece, The Times advanced the claim that science was little more than an act of faith, the faith that the universe is regular and comprehensible. This claim gets so many things wrong it's hard to know where to start.

It ignores the fact that humans had recognized regularities in the natural world long before science was developed to provide explanations for them. It also elides the fact that science's past successes now mean that future success is not a leap of faith, but rather an expectation based on empirical experience. The claim skips over the fact that science also explains non-regular behavior, such as the uneven distribution of tectonic activity, and that much of its efforts are directed towards finding exceptions to what we think are the rules that govern the universe.

Finally, although all scientists hope and work towards a greater understanding, if pressed, few of us would express faith that such an understanding is inevitable. It's entirely possible that we may never reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics, or that time has erased the evidence we need to develop a compelling theory of abiogenesis, and I think most researchers recognize that.

Although I admire how The Times handles science when reporting it, its editorial pages appear to be unwilling to uphold any standards in terms of factual accuracy when it comes to science. They publish without comment material that is, frankly, garbage: biased, unsubstantiated, misleading, or simply wrong. I recognize that these are the opinion pages, and are explicitly held to different standards than the news. But this is not a matter of presenting a diversity of views; it's a matter of maintaining some semblance of accuracy. The same editorial pages are frequently host to sharp criticisms of politicians that ignore scientific information. It's both bizarre and unfortunate that they've also become the site where the paper abdicates these same standards.